Psychological tests are designed to evaluate your capabilities and limitations in short, your strengths and weaknesses. They measure, or attempt to measure, almost anything from intelligence, to sanity, to manual and mental dexterity.
Psychological testing came into wide use after World War II, reaching a peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s. There is a periodic resurgence in their use, and some companies give such tests today. Handling this particular hurdle can be just as important as other challenges you meet in your job campaign.
Why You Should Be Wary of Psychological Tests
Are psychological tests accurate? Well, they can be. If this is true, why not go in straight and unprepared and let the chips fall where they may? For one thing, some PEs do not always use tests properly. Even though they have had little training in administering tests or interpreting their results, they attempt to do both.
One sales firm gave all its job candidates a test and required a minimum score before extending an offer. High scorers were given preference over low scorers, regardless of a candidate's accomplishments. After several years the personnel manager became suspicious because of the turnover in sales personnel in the company. An independent consultant was hired. His analysis showed that for this company's type of selling, scores above the minimum set by the firm were excellent predictors of failure, not success. Because of the tests, the company had consistently rejected candidates who were likely to succeed.
Another reason to be wary of psychological tests is that some PEs may set unrealistically high scoring requirements. In one state the Board of Education required candidates for high school teaching positions to score in the upper 2 percent of an IQ test. Now there are only a limited number of people in this IQ group; they are not all high school teachers and do not all congregate in one state. Yet this state's school system had no trouble finding qualified teachers. How is this possible? You guessed it. Those candidates who wanted the job badly enough prepared for the test, took practice exams, and spent time working on their weak areas until they could score at the required level.
Some firms, that use psychological testing in hiring, give so much weight to the tests that the hiring decision is determined almost solely by the test results. But according to Dr. Irwin Rodman, a psychologist whose practice includes testing for major firms, any testing professional who is allowed to make decisions about a candidate's suitability for employment is "whistling Dixie." Dr. Rodman was quoted in the May 1982 issue of American Business as saying, "He's not an accountant or an engineer. He's a psychologist and he has to make clear to his corporate clientele that his technical expertise and only his technical expertise is what's involved." Psychological factors should never be an important consideration in a hiring decision.
Probably the best predictive test ever developed was one used to measure success in aircrew training during World War II. Almost 200,000 aviators or would be aviators took this test, so the size of the sample population wasn't lacking. A descendant of the original test is still used today. How successful was this most successful of tests? It had a validity coefficient of .64. (A "perfect" test would have a validity coefficient of 1.0.) If you think that this doesn't sound very high, read on.
If those candidates who failed the aircraft test had been admitted into training anyway, statistics show that 56 percent would still have passed the course. Why weren't they admitted? It wasn't cost effective to have 44 percent of a class of pilots flunk out. Further, even this most successful of tests was predicting success in training. It said nothing about success in combat. Most tests have a much lower validity coefficient than the one for aircrew selection. In fact, for the complicated skills of managers and professionals, the correlation between test scores and performance is usually less than .50.
Some people are poor test takers. For whatever reason, they consistently score lower than other executives whom they easily outperform on the job. If you have a good background and skills that are in reasonable demand, but you know that you fall short of being the world's finest test taker, your best tactic may be not to take a test at all. Tell your PE that at your level, with your accomplishments, you do not feel you should be required to take a test. If there is any doubt at all, you would be happy to furnish references to verify the information you have provided. If the PE is really interested, you will probably not be required to take a test.
How to Prepare for Psychological Testing
Preparation for any type of psychological test takes time time you could more profitably use to get interviews. Therefore, do not go into lengthy preparations for psychological testing until you know you are going to be tested and can get some insight into what kind of test you may be given.
To prepare for psychological testing, I recommend that you take general tests offered by a university psychology department or by firms specializing in psychological testing. The latter source can be quite expensive, so if you have already had experience with such tests and have an idea how well you do, skip this phase.
If you have the chance, you should read books on psychological testing. I recommend Psychological Testing, by Anne Anastasi (Macmillan); The Brain Watchers, by Martin L. Gross (Random House); and Theory and Practice of Psychological Testing, by Frank S. Freeman (Holt, Rinehart and Winston). In addition, The Organization Man, by William H. Whyte, Jr. (Simon & Schuster), has two useful chapters "How Good an Organization Man Are You?" and "The Tests of Conformity" and a valuable appendix entitled "How to Cheat on Personality Tests."
Two General Rules on Passing Tests
There are two general rules on how to "pass" psychological tests. First, answer personality tests as if you were an average, middle class executive in your profession. Respond the way you think this average person would answer, not you. Don't favor any strange or radical views. Second, answer interest tests in a way that someone vitally interested in a career field would answer. That is, if you take two interest tests for a teaching position, one at College A for an English professor and the other at College B for an athletic director, your interest scales should reflect more introspective, scholarly concerns for College A and outdoorsy, leadership type action teaching for College B.
If you are going to lie on a test, make certain that you do so consistently. Many personality and interest tests have liar scales that document your success or failure in influencing the test without drawing attention to yourself. These scales are based on a lack of consistency in answering the same question presented in several different ways. For example, the following true false questions might be scattered throughout a single test:
- I prefer indoor activities, such as reading, to outdoor activities, such as sports.
- I spend most of my free time outdoors.
- I would prefer swimming, fishing, and walking over reading, playing chess, or listening to music.
- I would prefer boating, mountain climbing, or sunbathing over collecting stamps, doing crossword puzzles, or painting.
- My hobbies are mostly indoor activities.
